Oh my god. This episode was completely different from what I expected, and yet it continued this series’ streak of awesome episodes like it was nothing! Heck, there was very little comedy in this episode, and it really tried to tell a serious story, and it worked like an absolute charm here! Why the heck did this brilliant of a manga take this long to get animated?!

The thing that immediately sticks out: the graphics in this episode are absolutely amazing. The visual effects are incredibly imaginative and there are a ton of different ideas that looked absolutely gorgeous and that had had no intention at all to look conventional. I mean, holy crap: this is how you make a show with a tight budget! It’s also the contrast with the graphics of the previous three episodes that makes the graphics of this episode stand out.

Also, the story: from out of nowhere, it stars four random high school students with no hint whatsoever from the lead characters. That takes balls there, especially this early on in the series. What’s also great is that the creators pretty much created four distinctive and interesting male characters here: they feel unlike many of the other high school students that we’ve been seeing in anime and they’re completely away from any cliches. The dialogue and characterization is excellent and down to earth.

The episode basically revolves around those four guys as they witness an alien killing a young girl. The story of this alien was also really excellent and tragic: the case of an alien who eats the females in order to reproduce. It made for a really tense climax. All in all it was a brilliant episode…

And the irony is that that moronic prince came up with it! Oh, lord that anti-climax at the end just sealed the deal here. Usually whenever a character comes up with a story it’s pretty lame, but to create such a good scenario here… the creators really showed that this guy is a genius by not portraying him as a terrible storyteller.

I absolutely love David Production at this point. I mean, they continue to go right against the current trends, and they continue to animate stories that make you wonder why the heck nobody else had taken them before, and give them really worthwhile renditions. Ironically, they also don’t seem to care about the “pretty first episode”-syndrome in which creators put a lot of their efforts on the graphics of the first episode as a means to draw people in: first there was Bantorra with the ugly CG boat of episode 1, and now too: the first episode of Level E wasn’t really anything special in terms of graphics, but this episode looked utterly gorgeous.Rating: *** (Awesome)

Soejima Yasufumi is the director for this episode, and the animation chief is Ebihara Masao. Both of them worked with Gonzo before. Though the art style of this episode is very Pierrot-ized, or shall I say very Yuyuhakusho-ized?

Meh meh, I think it was good, the graphics looked fine, but I found it merely annyoing that I personally couldnt come in contact with the cast in this episode, before I could build up a feeling towards them, they dissappeared.

I’m not sure what to think of this episode…
On the one hand I liked it, the story was well told and felt “complete”.. on the other hand I really missed the prince’s antics and the whole character interaction that made the first three episodes so funny.
And I’m not that much of a fan of episodic stories. But it seems like this will bw what we’ll get in the next episodes: Different alien stories told by our prince.

Although with this show we can never know for sure so I’ll just wait what the next episodes will bring. ^^

Good episode, I like that the series has a serious side as well. Really interesting going to this one-off instead of advancing the main plot, but I think it works because it broadens our view of this alien-infested earth.

“Why the heck did this brilliant of a manga take this long to get animated?!”

It sounds like you’re under the impression that ‘if a manga is good, it will probably get animated’. This isn’t true at all as there is just no where near the capability for anime creation in comparison to manga and animation studios generally go for what they think will be popular rather than what will be most interesting.

You always say you wish there were more anime centred around adults and yet almost all adult-focused manga never get animated (and there is a lot).

You say you’ve tried to read a couple of manga before and couldn’t get anywhere but save those comments until after you’ve tried something like 20th Century Boys.

The anime industry is still pretty sad compared to the wonders I can find in reading manga. There are few reasons:
1) 90% of the time, the manga (mostly original work) are better, even when an anime adaptation exists. Reason? The original authors > your average anime director
2) There are TOO MANY good adult-oriented manga that will never get animated simply because it will not make money. Trust me, they are some of the most intriguing/exciting works I have read (excluding a few novel series).

One cannot appreciate Japanese manga/anime industry 100% without fully immersing oneself into manga. It’s like reading novels instead of watch TV series. Both are good, but the difference in experience is huge.

man the prince has to stop pulling these stupid tricks. i was so into this episode, i thought it was rather sad and disgusting as i was eating lunch at the time.

i hate it when people keep doing the manga vs anime thing. i like anime and sometimes i read manga, end of story. there is nothing wrong about a person wishing to have adult-centred manga turned into anime, it’s a wish ok? some comments here are so funny and entertaining to read.

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Masky

(Sunday, Aug 2. 2015 02:09 PM)

Geez, people really make odd excuses when defending stuff they like ._.
…I feel like thats probably hypocritical comment coming from me since I’ve probably done that too, but I think I usually go with attitude of “Hey, you’d probably not like it anyway, but I think you are wrong about that thing” xD

Emma

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 09:47 PM)

@Aidan: I would recommend downloading it rather than browser-playing it as my browser kept crashing when I tried to.
Its quite short but it gives a great teaser and introduction to the game, that gets me excited for it.

Emma

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 09:45 PM)

@Aidan: Mangagamer have released the demo for kara no shoujo 2, they’ve also confirmed a release for Autumn. Its probably better to call this demo more of a prologue/compliment to the game with content exclusive to it.
Demo/prologue here: http://mangagamer.org/kns2/

AidanAK47

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 02:14 PM)

@invicableGod, Yep that comment was spam. Should have got rid of it first time I saw it.

Wicked

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:10 AM)

well, this place changed a lot. Gotta say, I’m not a fan of how they adapted GATE into an anime. It feels too decompressed. Manga did a better job at keeping the tension taut

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:08 AM)

Also I am not the blog, I’m just a poster… I really hope you have enough sense to tell the difference…

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:07 AM)

@Emo: you’re saying all that like that doesn’t fit your description to a T. Kinda sad actually…
Well I guess now at least I gave you one more thing to get angry about so your day seems just a bit more active than your last.

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:03 AM)

I don’t think people are really expected to read it from the start anymore. I mean that’s probably why it stays popular in Japan considering people would have to be in their 20s at least to keep up from the start without reading hundreds of chapters just to keep up.

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 01:00 AM)

Well admittly comics don’t seem to be that easy to follow (don’t actually read comics despite liking a lot of DC and marvel media), but anyway it’s not like the other long-running shounens in terms of continuity and more like the long-running comedies like say Kochikoma.

;(

(Saturday, Aug 1. 2015 12:56 AM)

If you don’t like it, it’s cool.
If you don’t feel like watching a thing that still airs weekly that’s also cool.
If you leave it because it’s long or far from ending, you’re really missing out for little reason. One Piece is like western comics, the characters and setting has been around for years but each saga comes as a standalone story and for the most part is directed at both veterans and newcomers.

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